1. Employment Law 101
The stuff you absolutely
need to know
James Willis
Head of Employment
stevensdrake solicitors

2. The secret to employment law?
“Do as you would be done to”

3. The basic rights
They can be divided into two types:
 contractual rights
 statutory rights

4. Contractual rights
They may come from a range of sources:
 written terms
 express verbal terms
 implied terms

5. Written contracts
The essentials:
 make sure you have one in place
 make sure it says what you want and mean it to say
 make sure you issue it at the right time
 make sure everyone signs it

6. What to cover
 Make sure that you include:
 parties, job title, hours of work, place of work, pay,
holiday, sickness, notice entitlement etc
 anything else specific to your business
 confidentiality, non-competition etc.
 But don’t include too much

7. Watch out for implied terms
 Making up for an absent clause
Overruling an express clauses - statutory notice entitlement
 Implied terms placing a burden on employees:
 duty of good faith
 duty to exercise reasonable skill and care
 duty to obey lawful orders
 duty of confidentiality
 Implied terms placing a burden on employers:
 duty to provide a safe system of work
 implied equality clause
 mutual trust and confidence

8. Terminating contracts
 Look at the contract first
 Read the termination provisions carefully
 Consider your options:
 giving full notice
 payment in lieu of notice (PILON)
 garden leave
 Consider termination / post-termination obligations

9. Policies and procedures
These provide full details of how your HR function
works
 You probably need at least a few:
 disciplinary procedure
 grievance procedure
 equal opportunities policy
 But don’t have more than you can manage!

10. Statutory rights
There are a lot, but some of the most important ones are:
 unfair dismissal
 discrimination
 family-friendly rights
 paid holiday
 national minimum wage

11. Unfair Dismissal
 Any employee with 2 (or possibly 1) years’
continuous service has the right not to be unfairly
dismissed
 A successful claim for unfair dismissal can result in
 a Basic Award of up to £12,900
 a Compensatory Award of up to £72,300 (or more?)
 The cost of getting it wrong can be considerable

12. What is a dismissal?
There are 3 types:
 express dismissal
 unfair constructive dismissal (a fundamental breach of
contract by the employer in response to which the
employee resigns)
 expiry and non-renewal of a fixed-term contract

13. What makes a dismissal fair?
An employer typically needs to prove that:
 it had a potentially fair reason for dismissing
 it acted reasonably in relying on that reason as
justification for dismissal
 it adopted a fair process

14. Potentially fair reasons
 There are 5 potentially fair reasons for dismissal:
 conduct
 capability
 redundancy
 statutory illegality
 some other substantial reason (SOSR)
 Make sure you know which one you are relying on
 Watch out for automatically unfair reasons for dismissal (e.g
pregnancy, whistleblowing, health and safety)

15. Reasonableness
If you have a potentially fair reason for dismissing, the
rest is about ‘reasonableness’:
 is the decision to dismiss within the ‘band of reasonable
responses’?
 is the process reasonable?

16. Discrimination
 There are numerous types of discrimination - the main
‘protected characteristics’ are:
 sex
 race
 disability
 sexual orientation
 religion or belief
 age
 But don’t forget pregnancy/maternity, marriage/civil
partnership and gender reassignment discrimination

17. Discrimination
It takes many forms (‘prohibited acts’):
 direct discrimination
 indirect discrimination
 victimisation
 harassment
 discrimination arising from disability
 failure to make reasonable adjustments

18. Family friendly rights
 There are quite a lot:
 right to maternity leave and pay
 right to adoption leave and pay
 right to paternity leave and pay
 right to parental leave
 right to time off for family emergencies
The list goes on - would a written policy help?

19. Is that all clear?
 If not, don’t worry.
 It’s not about knowing all the answers. It’s about
knowing that there is a question to be asked in the
first place.

20. Questions?

21. James Willis
stevensdrake solicitors
(01293) 596931
james.willis@stevensdrake.com